Patent Application
20130104744
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
The purpose of this invention is to make the cooking of satays easier.
Satays are slices, cubes or small chunks of meat that are impaled onto pointed skewers and cooked over a hot grill. The most common skewer is made from bamboo, a plentiful grass that grows in tropical regions. Bamboo skewers are sturdy, inexpensive and widely available. Chunks of meat are typically impaled onto the bamboo skewers, occupying about half the length of the skewer and leaving the other half of the skewer empty to act as a handle for cooking the skewer over a hot grill and for holding the skewer while eating the meat. Satays are prepared, cooked, consumed, and enjoyed around the world.
Cooking satays over a hot grill is sometimes difficult as the bamboo skewer handles may dry out and burn if subjected to high heat. If the handle burns, the meat section of the satay may break off from the handle and fall into the hot grill, necessitating the use of tongs or other implements to retrieve the meat from the heat. Loss of the handle also makes eating the satay less convenient as eaters cannot hold the satay, necessitating the use of eating implements such as a knife and fork. Even worse, the meat section may break off and fall onto the floor, leading to loss of food.
To reduce the chances of bamboo skewer handles burning, cooks around the world have been advised in countless cookbooks and by cooking professionals to pre-soak in water their bamboo skewers for 30 minutes or more to add moisture to the bamboo and reduce the risk of burning. This may be inconvenient for cooks as additional thought and effort are involved in pre-soaking the bamboo skewers prior to using them. Depending on cooking time and grill temperatures, pre-soaking may not provide adequate protection and bamboo skewer handles may still burn.
Commercially manufactured barbecue grills present an additional challenge to cooks in that barbecue grill grates are typically oriented north to south. If satays are placed onto the cooking grate parallel to the grill's cooking grates, the satays may fall in between the grates if the meat on the skewers is not of sufficient thickness, increasing the risk of losing the satay all together, and burning the meat as well as the bamboo handle. Avoiding this problem necessitates placing the satays perpendicular to the grill grates, with the handles of the skewers near the side of the grill. However, placing satays on the side of the grill may be inconvenient or impossible depending on the design of the grill and whether there is room on the side of the grill for the skewer handles.
A heat shield, such as a sheet of aluminum foil, may provide some heat protection for bamboo handles, but the handles sit closely to the heat shield making holding or touching the handles potentially difficult due to the heat of the barbecue grill. Additionally, satays and the heat shield must be placed perpendicular to the grill's cooking grates to reduce the chance of the satays falling in between the grill grates.
My invention makes cooking satays easier by reducing the risk of bamboo skewer handles burning, by making it easier and safer to hold the bamboo handles while satays are cooking and by reducing the chance of satays falling in between grill grates into the hot grill. Since my invention reduces the heat that bamboo skewer handles is exposed to, the need to pre-soak bamboo skewers in water is eliminated.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The satay grill rack is comprised of a metal grill rack with a metal grill bar which, when assembled together and placed on the cooking grate of a heated barbecue grill, holds up satay meat skewers for grilling. The rack elevates the satay meat skewers above the surface of the grill and with the aid of a heat shield, makes holding the handles of the satay meat skewers easier and safer and reduces the chance of the bamboo skewer handles burning. The front wall of the grill rack and the grill bar create parallel, cross-wise surfaces so that meat skewers may be laid onto the surfaces. The grill rack is adjustable and can accommodate meat skewers of different lengths.
As depicted in
The preferred embodiment of the satay grill rack is fabricated from sheet metal that is suitable for cooking, such as foodservice quality stainless steel or aluminum. The sheet metal is of a thickness that can maintain the shape of the rack even when heated to high grill temperatures and strong enough to support a plurality of satay meat skewers placed on the rack. The grill bar 2 is a solid, cylindrical grill bar shaft 6 made from metal suitable for cooking and of a thickness that can maintain the shape of the shaft even when heated to high grill temperatures and strong enough to support a plurality of satay meat skewers placed on the grill bar. The ends of the grill bar shaft 6 terminate with metal stops 7. The metal stops 7 hold the grill bar shaft 6 in place when the grill bar shaft 6 is installed onto corresponding notches 4 on top of the side walls 3 of the grill rack, as shown in
The grill rack 1 is rectangular in shape and is comprised of a front wall 10 with connected flat heat shield 9, two side walls 3, and two rear wall sections 5. All walls are connected to each other at 90 degree angles. The preferred embodiment of the grill rack has a front wall 10 that is 16 inches wide. The side walls 3 are 6 inches wide and the rear wall sections 5 are each 2 inches wide. All walls are 2 inches in height. The heat shield 9 is a rectangular section of sheet metal joined to the bottom edge of the front wall at 90 degrees and extends towards the front by 3 inches. The grill bar 2 is a grill bar shaft 6 that is 16½ inches long. The length of the grill bar 2 must be somewhat longer than the width of the rack so that the grill bar shaft 6 may rest on the side walls 3 of the grill rack. The diameter of the grill bar shaft 6 is ¼ inch. The metal stops 7 at the end of the grill bar shaft 6 are wider than the diameter of the grill bar shaft 6 so that the grill bar shaft 6 will sit securely on the side walls 3 and not fall off the rack. The diameter of the metal stops 7 is ½ inch.
The top edge of the front wall 10 and the grill bar 2 together elevate the satay meat skewers above the surface of the grill and with the aid of the heat shield 9, makes holding and touching the skewer handles 11 of the satay meat skewers easier and safer and reduces the chance of bamboo skewer handles burning. A person cooking the satay meat skewers may hold the bamboo skewer handles 11 to reposition the satays, flip the satays or remove the satays during the cooking process with reduced risk of burning his or her fingers or hands.
The side walls 3 have notches 4 pre-cut into the top edge of each side wall 3 at one inch intervals, as shown in
The top edge 8 of the front wall 10 of the rack and the grill bar shaft 6 create a parallel set of narrow surfaces that run cross-wise from left to right on the grill. Satay meat skewers 12 are placed perpendicularly onto theses parallel surfaces, with the bottom edge 13 of the meat section 14 of a satay skewer placed directly onto the top edge 8 of the front wall 10 and the top portion of the meat section 14 of the satay skewer placed directly across the grill bar shaft 6. The bamboo handles 11 of the satay meat skewers will protrude above the rack's heat shield 9 and towards the front of the grill.
Although the description above contains many specifics, these should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention, but merely providing illustration of some of the presently preferred embodiments of this invention.
